Violent game = violent person?

There has been much in the news recently about how gaming has been responsible for the murders of several people. But just how much is gaming responsible?

A quick Google of the words “Gamer kills” returns over 11million results. Whether its about a gamer gaining revenge from an ‘in-game’ killing, love rivalry, or because its being used as a form of punishment, gaming is usually a central focus.

It is easy to find arguments for and against violent games being the root cause for violent people. Christopher Ferguson is an outspoken critic of the relationship between games and real life violence. Stating that non-standard experimental measures are used to link violence and violent behavior. In addition he shows that youth violence has dropped whilst the number of violent games as increased, showing now direct correlation between the two.

Whilst in 2006 researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine used an MRI scanner to show the effects violent games have on the brain. The scans clearly showed an increase in emotional arousal. Whilst they have not proven that there are any long term effects of this, nor that this guarantees any one playing World at War will become a serial killer, it does show that they do have an effect.

However, it can be argued in some case where gaming is laid to blame, the game was not at fault. In the case of the “The Halo 3 Killer” defense lawyers claimed that the violent gaming had merged Daniel Petric’s sense of reality meaning he could no longer tell the difference between death in a game and death in real life. The Judge added to this in his statement “I feel confident that if there were no such thing as violent video games, I wouldn’t know Daniel Petric,” he said. The prosecution claimed it was Daniel’s addiction to this specific pastime which meant that when it was taken away he became violent. The question in this case is had Daniel been addicted to Need for Speed would he have acted in the same way?

It is safe to say that online gaming does draw in some strange people. I, no doubt, am not alone in receiving messages via Xbox Live post game containing threats. The best way to handle these is not to respond, leave it be and start a new game elsewhere is needed. Be sure never to give out to much about your location, city tends to be ok but if you live in a village of 5 people its easy to work out who you are. Just remember, you don’t know who is at the other end of that cable.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 4:25 pm and is filed under General Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.